The future of bus service in Santa Clara County will be unveiled today, when the public gets its first glimpse at plans for a new, rapid-service line along Alum Rock Avenue and Santa Clara Street in San Jose.

Instead of boxy city buses, chugging along in the far-right lane, stopping at every red light, these sleek roadsters will look more like Amtrak trains and will speed along special bus lanes built into the median on Alum Rock. They’ll even allow the bus drivers to keep traffic lights green.

Future riders will get a chance to comment on the design during a 6 p.m. meeting today at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose. The buses will make fewer stops, run more frequently and cut the current 25-minute ride to 14 minutes on a corridor that has the highest transit ridership in the South Bay.

“The Santa Clara-Alum Rock line is the linchpin of everything we want to do with bus rapid transit,” said Kevin Connolly, transit planning manager with the Valley Transportation Authority.

The $128 million project, funded by taxes approved by voters eight years ago, could be completed in 2012. It will be the second line with fast, limited-stop service, following on the success of The Alameda-El Camino Real line, where ridership has shot up in the past three years.

Additional lines

A third line along Stevens Creek Boulevard is also in the plans. Similar lines along Monterey Highway and between Cupertino and Sunnyvale are also possible.

The agency has undergone a major transformation in recent months. In January, it boosted service on its most popular 15 routes and cut back dozens of lesser-used lines. It runs more express buses, especially from the Fremont BART station to downtown San Jose, and uses smaller, shuttle-like buses in Los Gatos and Campbell.

The goal: Boost bus ridership by 7,000 a day by the end of the year.

Last month, ridership hit 112,784 a day – 10,434 higher than in June of last year.

What’s different about the rapid-line buses from regular bus lines? A lot, from the looks of the buses to the stations and the roads they will travel.

Buses will likely be dark in color, a deep blue or maybe black. They’llstand out – which is the idea with a “VTA Rapid” or “V Line” logo on each bus, on this route and others.

Stations will resemble light-rail stops, and passengers will need to buy tickets ahead of time to avoid slowing down service by paying as they board.

Electronic signs at each station will alert passengers when the next bus is arriving. WiFi on board will be another incentive. Fares will probably be the same as on other transit routes.

Rail too costly

At one time, the plan called for light rail to run along Alum Rock and Santa Clara streets. But that option would cost around $262 million more, and it would tear up downtown streets, run less often, carry fewer riders and not be ready until 2021.

Plus, the annual maintenance cost of light rail is $1 million per mile. Buses cost just a fraction of that.

The downside: A total of 106 parking spaces will be removed along the 4 1/2-mile corridor.

The hope is to attract people who don’t now ride a bus.

“The look gives the impression that this is not a standard bus,” Connolly said. “It will go fast, be convenient, be comfortable. It looks like a train, and that is intentional.”

Cities across the country are employing similar service, among them Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Portland, Denver and San Francisco. But the VTA needs to look no further than its own back yard to gauge the potential.

Line 22 runs along The Alameda and El Camino Real, and three years ago carried around 20,000 riders a day to rank as the most heavily used route in the county. But in 2005 the VTA introduced the 522 line, which shaved more than 15 minutes off a ride to the Peninsula – and added nearly 2,500 daily passengers.

Gary Richards has covered traffic and transportation in the Bay Area as Mr. Roadshow since 1992. Prior to that he was an assistant sports editor at the paper from 1984-1987. He started his journalism career as a sports editor in Iowa in 1975.

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